


Theophany

by mrhiddles



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, POV Thor, Past Character Death, Regret, Thor Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 06:30:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1769086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/pseuds/mrhiddles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parents tell their children things will work out in the end, that things will be alright.<br/>Sometimes they don’t and they aren’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Theophany

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this on its own as it's in my top five personal favorites and I rarely like my writing after I finish it. Originally a part of my [Thorki Ficlets](http://archiveofourown.org/works/800113/chapters/1507445). I'll be posting a couple more on their own here shortly. This one's a little personal.
> 
> This one is tied for what I'm most proud of, the other being Viral.

On cold nights he can catch the scent of him on the air. Something rich, but faint. Something dying, like rotted corrosion at the edges of cement and the wood of long forgotten buildings. Foundations of civilizations long lost weeping for their forsaken foundries. Like a glimpse into what could have been, lost to the wind to crumble.

He sits and waits, rare nights by the fire, sometimes with a beer or a book or nothing at all.

But he never comes home.

\--

He wakes up at five, takes a shower, combs his hair back and into a tie, puts on a lean black mess of Tom Ford and goes to work on an empty stomach. Because eating to thoughts of _him_ more often than not set his stomach to roiling.

The memories are strongest in the morning, just after waking. Clinging to his skin like nothing ever changed. Like _he_ was still here. Like he would open his eyes and have truth to greet him.

But it is a lie and so he wakes, traitorous, dream-clad smile weak, breaking.

Then he goes on with his day.

\--

He knows he was right.

He feels wrong.

Parents tell their children things will work out in the end, that things will be alright.

Sometimes they don’t and they aren’t.

Sometimes they’ll never be.

He hasn’t spoken to his parents in years.

\--

He has friends. He isn’t lonely, not exactly. There is an almost constant strand of chaos around him the moment he gets into his car and drives to work. People driving around him and changing lanes, gravel crunching sinfully as he turns into work and sees the others wave their hellos. The way Sif smiles at him as taps away at her tablet, telling him what they have ahead of them that day. The way Bruce and Tony stop him in the halls to inform him—brag, on Tony’s part— of how well their stock is doing. The way Steve and Fandral and Hogun clack away in their offices as he passes them, Fandral calling a loud greeting.

There is a cacophony of life all around him.

He isn’t alone.

But he sits at his desk and deals with Fury calling meetings, humming his way through conference calls and the hours he spends whittling away the stack of files beside his laptop. He goes through his day, staring at the clean sweep of his desk, thinking how he doesn’t even have a picture of _him_.

He isn’t alone but he feels like he is.

\--

He goes home and everything else dies. The moment his door clicks shut, the moment he turns the lock and takes his next breath, peace descends. Silence. Nothing.

He would worship the solitude of his home if it did anything but remind him of what he ruined.

\--

He works out. He has a home gym, worth far too much money, but it’s his own and he doesn’t have to wait thirty minutes for someone else to finish doing a set of reps with far too much grunting and groaning and filth.

He had a professor in college who always lamented about his knee, because he used to run all the time and he was too injured to do it anymore. Running was his escape, his professor’s peacetime, his meandering route from war and maybe, he thought, it could be like that for him too.

So he runs a lot now. He lifts only enough so his arms still slide through the arms of his suits without bunching inappropriately. He drives himself to hunger and exhaustion.

He eats a small feast every night and passes out to empty dreams.

It’s worth the burning in his limbs.

\--

He feels he understands humanity a little more each time his head hits his pillow.

But sometimes the dreams still slip through and they aren’t exactly dreams, and neither are they truly nightmares.

They’re memories.

He wakes up heaving and trembling after each time and it’s not worth it, it never was, never at all.

\--

Smiles full of teeth and tongue and eyes large and bright and scheming.

Hair swept wild in the wind and clothes pricked with the pollen of forests and the seeds of trees.

Fingers curled over his breast and words trilling soft in his ear, whispering lovely things of better times.

Things like _brother_ and _mine_ and _more_.

\--

He’s forgotten _his_ face but he still sees him in sleep. Slightly blurred at the edges and shifting like shadow, but he’s there, he’s there.

It is why he wakes early in the morning. It is why he still wakes at all.

He’s forgotten what to say, what can be said. He will never have the chance to see him again.

He made a mistake, but he knows it was still the right choice.

He has to believe that.

He never was the better liar.


End file.
